Plan to save horses in Fort McMurray fire zone in place

Alberta Agriculture and Forestry will be coordinating efforts to save horses in the Fort McMurray fire zone.

Sonia Dantu from the Alberta Equestrian Federation says Alberta Agriculture and Forestry will be working with Wood Buffalo Operations to go in and save horses when they are allowed back into the fire zone.

Right now they are concentrating on gathering information from horse owners from the area.

“We’re trying to gather their contact information, the number of horses they have in the fire zone and where the horses last were and we are feeding that information to Alberta Agriculture and in turn they are feeding that information in to Fort McMurray By-law Services and its our understanding that bylaw services is checking on horses,” says Dantu.

Dantu says they have had a lot of offers of help, especially to house the horses after they are rescued, but that is not what is needed right now.

“What we are encouraging people to do right now is make financial donations, those can be made directly into our organization we are recognized by the Alberta Government under Alberta Sport Connection and people that want to donate money can do so either directly to our organization on our homepage or there is also a form they can for a taxable donation that goes to the Alberta Government and comes back into our organization.”

She says it is important that no-one try to go in to the fire zone and try to round-up the horses themselves.

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